The Real Story of Passover

[Henry L Lazarus hlazar@netaxs.com]

The following is an article I did for a local give-away newspaper. It
should not be looked at by anyone who believes that the Torah was literally
written by GOD.

The Real Story of Passover
By Henry L. Lazarus

At sundown on Monday, April 21st, the Jewish celebration of Passover
begins with the first Seder. The Seder is a festival meal in which the
Haggadah is read as a way to remember the events, some thirty-five hundred
years ago, when Hebrew slaves were liberated from Egypt. The Haggadah
contains text written about a century after the destruction of the Herod's
temple, or about eighteen hundred years ago and is a selection from the
Jewish book of laws called the Mishna. It includes stories and prayers
that create a ritual about the event that has echoed down the ages. The
word Haggadah, in fact, means literally "narration" or "the telling of a
story". Religious families take especial care to clean their homes before
the holiday, making sure the last of the bread crumbs has been removed.
There is even a special ritual of selling all the non-passover foods. Its
a time to get together with family, neighbors, and friends. Many families
take hours to read and discuss the miraculous events pondering again as
their ancestors did the ancient miracles. Many families add special
rituals to make the ceremony special - but the general rituals like the
youngest asking the famous four questions and the standard four cups of
wine have a specialness of their own. Foods like Matza Ball soup and
Gefilta Fish are common, along with turkey and other Thanksgiving-like
foods. All the bread in the house is replaced with Matza, unleavened bread
that tastes like crackers, for the full eight days of the holiday.
In Medieval times Haggadahs were richly decorated. Some from the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries have survived and can be found in
museums. http://rylibweb.man.ac.uk/data1/dg/text/dg001.html has a picture
of a page of one from fourteenth century Spain.
During the time of Jesus, Passover was one of the four major Pilgrimage
holidays. Like Muslims today, Jews of the Roman period were expected to
come to Jerusalem once in their lifetime and celebrate one of these
holidays. Sheep were slaughtered by the priests in the Temple and the
inedible parts burnt as offerings. The custom was that the lamb was then
cooked and had to be all eaten that night with matzah while discussing the
exodus. The custom was for families and friends to share the food and talk
about the exodus until the lamb was completely finished. This is probably
the final supper that Jesus probably ate.
There was a Jewish Temple on the island of Elephantine in Egypt (near the
Aswan Dam) about the time of the destruction of the first temple in
Jerusalem in the 5th century before Jesus. Jewish soldiers, assigned to
the Assyrian fort there, wrote for permission to eat unleavened bread
during the holiday period and these documents have been found and
translated.
The bible tells us that the Hebrew slaves painted lamb's blood on the door
posts of their homes to keep the angel of death out and when they left
their homes, they left with bread that hadn't had time to rise - unleavened
bread.
What really happened thirty five hundred years ago?
The bible tells a fascinating story of plagues and separating the Red Sea,
and of a God with many natural powers who can't seem to change a single
human mind. With an apology to those who take the bible text literally,
many find this difficult to believe - a fairy tale, so to speak.
Archeology has given only a slim bit of information about the era - stone
carvings on tombs and stelae, a few hieroglyphic documents, and what can be
learned from pottery. Nothing about the Exodus has been found and some
archeologists believe the whole tale a myth.
However, when information about Thera, a volcano in the Mediterranean
which exploded during the bronze age, it is possible to speculate on real
facts and put a real story together that matches the biblical story quite
well.
The island of Santorini just off of Crete has the shape of a giant letter
C. Pioctures and tourist maps can be found at: http://www.santorini.com./ .
Philip P. Betancourt, a professor of Art History and Archaeology, Temple
University has collected a group of sources about Akrotiri, the town buried
in ashes by the volcano. (http://www.arth.upenn.edu/525/resource.html) The
images of the dead society are fascinating, but equally fascinating is the
descriptions in the bible of events (like the pillar of smoke and fire)
mentioned in the bible.
The world ORT Union has information about a site near the delta of the Nile
where "a Semitic settlement exhibited strong cultural links to
Syria-Palestine was discovered. The settlement's various starts were dated
to between c 1662 B.C.E to 1447 B.C.E. In addition, soon after its
formation the settlement it appears became the seat of a high ranking
official of Semitic origin." http://bible.ort.org/bible/htm/ATLAS/HISTORY/MO
S_ARC1.HTM.
It is possible to speculate using that information and information about
the Egyptian pharaohs and actually put together a story that not only fits
Egyptian history, but also fits the biblical story.
About 1500 Moses might have been adopted by Hatshepsut (Exodus 2:5)
instead of a daughter of a Pharaoh This strong willed queen was an
interesting character whose mummy can be found at the University Museum.
When her husband died in 1504 she insisted on ruling as Pharaoh and even
insisted on being called a man. She might have wanted an alternate child
to raise, or even a replacement for her son, Tutmose III, who probably was
not controllable. All we know about the relationship between her and her
son is that when she died in 1482 he had her name chiseled off her tomb and
monuments.
This would make him 14 in 1486 when Tutmose III invaded Canaan and a good
time for him to be accused of the murder (2:12) because Midian (2:15) where
he fled is near there.
In 1450 Tutmose III died and Moses returned from exile (2:23) It is as
likely that he returned because he wanted reinstatement as much as from a
burning bush. The capitol of Egypt at that time was in Thebes, some three
hundred miles to the south of the delta region where the Hebrew slaves were
kept. That's where he would have gone.
Now with some knowledge of volcano's and much speculation it is possible
to imagine the rest. The huge build-up of lava in Thera might have been
enough to raise the temperature of the Mediterranean a few degrees. Algae
which normally turn the Nile pink in the delta area might have reacted to
that warmth and overgrow, polluting the river and dying it red. The
polluted water would have forced out frogs, lice, and vermin. Bad water
would have cause animal and human plagues. At the same time preliminary
reactions from the volcano would have sent stones spewing into the air,
causing them to fall in the region and heavy smoke which would darken the
skies. The slaves must have been petrified by these ten plagues. They
looted their neighbors, gathered what unbaked bread they could and headed
away from the area - south away from the Nile and civilization and toward
the edge of the Red Sea.
Moses, rejected by the new Pharaoh might have headed north, meeting the
refugees on the shore of the Red Sea. He would have known the area and how
to survive on the plants. He also had some magic tricks available - he
could turn a staff into a snake and make his hand seem leprous. He would
have turned them around and headed them north to pass through the area
between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea where the Suez Canal is now.
As they traveled north they would have easily seen the smoke and fire from
the volcano, even though they were hundreds of miles away.
Pharaoh might have followed because his spies might have thought the mass
of slaves as Moses's army, or simply to recapture the slaves. In either
case both would have found themselves in that narrow strip of land between
the two seas.
That would be when the Volcano blew. Tidal waves would have been launched
in all directions. Mostly the local islands would have contained the flow -
but in one direction, and only one that the waves, moving at four hundred
miles an hour, would have been unstopped. Looking at a map, it's easy to
seat that the thrust of the tidal was aimed at that narrow strip of land.
When the wave of water hit, it must of gone over the strip of land,
sweeping all that was in front of it to the Red Sea. The bible (14:28)
tells us that the Egyptian army was lost in the waters. The Pharaoh's body
must have been totally lost, and been unable to be entombed for life after
death. It must have seemed like the act of a God to the Egyptians and would
have made such a Pharaoh such a symbol of bad luck that his name would have
been erased from their history.
All the above is of course speculation. There are other theories, other
thoughts about this important event. Was it all myth, the imagination of a
people looking for God - or did something really happen. Whatever it was,
the echoes of this event, still remain. Jews celebrating this event this
month still remember that lost Pharaoh, the ten plagues, and the man who
led their ancestors out of Egypt - Moses.

--
Henry L Lazarus hla...@netaxs.com

P.S. The above was worked out by assuming that the events in Exodus were
written down by someone who did not experience the events, but talked to
those who did and tried to make sense of the tales. If you have trouble
believing in God, go look at a map of Greece and find Thera --- Mountains
that would have taken millions of years to position nicely block the output
of the tidal wave so that it is actually focused on the correct area.
Isn'
t that an amazing coincidince or evidence of God.